Lisa Klein and Alice Barnes both had top ten performances today on stage two of the Healthy Ageing Tour finishing fifth and seventh respectively. Due to extreme wind the stage start was twice postponed, and the UCI commissaires instructed that riders could only use their road bikes. The 14.4km individual time trial (ITT) was won by Ellen van Dijk (TFS).

“I have to say I’m okay with the result, but I am hungry for more! I am not far from being at my best but I’m getting there and I am feeling more confident race by race,” said Lisa after the finish.

“The gap to Ellen is quite big I have to admit. Then there is a group of us that are close together on the results sheet. It’s a starting point though I wanted to win, or at least be on the podium.”

In spite of the blustery winds and change of bikes, Lisa said she had done everything to prepare.

“I’m so happy with the efforts of our staff today! Our sport director Lars (Teutenberg) and Dan Bigham (performance engineer) made sure we were all prepared and I could keep to my race plan like I wanted. The mechanics also made several changes to my road bike at the last minute, in order to help me perform as best I could. I don’t have any excuses, I obviously just miss this little extra power.”

Lisa moved up twenty-five places in the general classification to be fifth behind tour leader, van Dijk.

“We’re all feeling good and we’ve got nothing to lose tomorrow. Yesterday was my first time being road captain and I enjoyed it a lot. I’ll recover as much as possible and can’t wait for the last day!”

ALICE BARNES

“The wind made the pacing fairly simple. With a crosshead and headwind on the way out the turn around point acted as a sort of first finish line. My aim was to hold around my threshold until there, get back up to speed as quick as possible, and with the tail wind push until the line. I was feeling good in my warm up so knew if I gave it everything then I could be happy with my result and I am.”

“Going into the final stage, we have three riders in the top eleven in the overall. The course will be tough and hard for any team to control the stage, so we will look to take advantage of that and race aggressively.”

HANNAH LUDWIG

“Time trials are always special and different every time. That’s what I love about them. Today the wind was really playing a big role. Especially because it changed towards the end for the later starting riders. I am happy about the watts I did and it’s just early season so there are more time trials to come.”

HOW TO FOLLOW

The final stage of Healthy Ageing Tour will be broadcasted around the world on Podium TV, Eurosport, GCN and Sport Noord.

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